


everybody wants to change the world but no one wants to die

by mermistia



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Kidnapping, M/M, [insert evil kermit meme here], bc we stan blood, daniel is a SHIT, funniest fuckign thing ever, i got google translate to read this out to me to check for mistakes, me to me: write DEATH, me: im gonna write smth fun and light hearted for my friend’s birthday!, there’s probably still mistakes though because i am an incompetent FOOL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 00:55:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19346263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mermistia/pseuds/mermistia
Summary: He’ll lay down his knife. He really will. He’ll start a new life. A good life.After just one last kill.





	everybody wants to change the world but no one wants to die

It’s dark when he wakes up, but David can still tell where he is, and who he’s looking at. 

He doesn’t think he could mistake the person if he tried. 

“Hello, David.”

“I- Daniel?”

They’re in Campbell’s bunker somehow, and they’re facing each other, and Daniel hasn’t changed at all. He’s still tall, with blonde hair that seems ever so slightly _too_ perfectly styled, with eyes that look at you like they know every secret that you’ve ever kept. But he looks tired. 

“You look tired,” David says sleepily, and Daniel scowls. 

“David, I know that you’re slightly out of it right now, but there’s no need to be rude.” He smiles. “Where’s your Camp Campbell spirit?”

David blinks and glances up at the cuffs locked around his wrists, keeping him chained to a bar on the wall. “But you do look tired,” he insists, and pulls on the cuffs gently. “Are you okay?”

“Am I-” Daniel falters. “David, why are you asking me if I’m okay?” He takes a step forward, and David’s gaze shifts downwards to the knife in his hand. 

David blinks the last of his sleep from his eyes, and shakes his head, letting his hair fall over his face. “I’m worried about you, Daniel. You went away in an ambulance. You’re- you have a knife, and handcuffs and- that’s not normal.”

“It is for some people,” Daniel throws his hands up in annoyance, taking a step closer to David. “I’ve kidnapped you, why the fuck are you insulting me, you little- alright.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, and takes a short step backwards. “ _Alright._ Let’s just... get to the point, shall we?” He flicks a finger against the point of his knife, tilting his head at the noise that his nail makes against the metal. “I’ll make you a deal.”

David squirms in his cuffs, his feet skidding where they barely touch the ground. “A deal? Oh, uh- what kind of deal?”

Daniel smiles brightly, and David smiles back, but it doesn’t last as Daniel rushes forwards and takes David’s face in his hands. “The fun kind,” Daniel hisses through his teeth, and his smile doesn’t waver. “Has your dear little Max told you about what happened to me?”

“You drunk bad kool-aid,” David says, words muffled by Daniel’s tight grip on his cheeks. “And you went to hospital. We missed you! I was going to get the campers to make you a get well soon card, but they refused for some reason.” 

Daniel snorts. “For some reason, huh?” He asks, and pushes David’s face away. “God, you’re stupid.”

David sticks out his bottom lip in a pout. “Well, that’s not nice.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.” Daniel waves his hand in an angry blur, and his knife flies across the room and sinks into the wall, centimetres away from David’s head. David flinches soundlessly. “David, shut up.”

David blinks. “I- I didn’t say anything.”

“Well, don’t.”

David blinks again, opens his mouth, and then closes it. He shifts his feet around awkwardly, and takes in a breath as Daniel speaks again. 

“So, my deal, right? You’re going to listen to me, and you’re not going to say a word until I tell you to. If you speak, I’ll take that knife, and I’ll throw it again, and trust me; I won’t miss again. Do you understand, David?”

“Y- hm.” David nods. 

“Alright. I didn’t drink bad kool-aid. I’m not sure why that’s something that I have to explain to you, but apparently, David, it is.”

“But the ambulance!” David says, and curls in on himself the best he can when Daniel hisses in annoyance. “Sorry.”

“The ambulance came because I passed out because I drunk fucking _rat poison,_ you idiot. The kool-aid was poisoned.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m the one who fucking poisoned it!” Daniel takes two sharp steps forwards and pulls his knife out of the wall, narrowing his eyes at the dent it leaves in the stone. “I told you not to speak,” he says, and drags the blade across David’s neck softly, leaving invisible patterns on the skin. It’s not deep enough to cut until David squirms and leans into it, and droplets of blood rise to the surface of his body and trail down into the shirt around his neck. 

David winces in pain, and Daniel stares back at him with amusement. “You’re hurting yourself,” he says flatly, and pulls the knife away. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“ _You_ shouldn’t have knives,” David says petulantly, his pout returning. “They’re not safe.”

“Well, they aren’t meant to be safe. Can I kill you?”

David freezes. “What?”

“Can I kill you?” Daniel’s face is emotionless, like he’s asked for something as simple as the time, or weather, or for the salt to be passed across the table to him. Like he hasn’t just asked for permission to commit a murder. “It’s a simple question, David. Yes or no?”

“It’s- well, that isn’t- it’s not simple!” David stammers, and pulls on his arms a little more harshly. “That’s not a simple question, Daniel! That’s not a question that you should be asking at all!”

“But it’s one that I _am_ asking.” Daniel plays with the tip of his knife, pressing his finger against the blade hard enough to tear a shallow cut in the skin, blood welling and dripping down his finger. He doesn’t seem to notice. David stares. 

“I don’t- I don’t want to die!”

“Oh, of course you don’t. But that isn’t what I asked.”

A cold wind seems to rattle through the room suddenly, even though there’s no windows and the door is locked tight, and David shivers. “Why?”

Daniel looks bored. “Why what?”

“Why do you want to- to- to do _that_ to me? I tried to be your friend! I still want to be your friend!”

“You’re saying that out of fear,” Daniel says simply. The bored look on his face increases as he drags a hand over his face, frustration obvious in his voice. “You don’t want to be my _friend._ You just don’t want to die. You’ve said that yourself.” He stands up straighter, throwing a hand out in impatience. “So? What’s it going to be? Can I kill you?”

David’s voice quietens. “Why would I say yes to that?”

“Why, because I’ll make it my last murder.”

David draws in a breath, and bites down on his lip hard. He can feel the cuffs starting to rub at his wrists, his squirming and pulling starting to leave marks, and he forces his arms to still. “You’ll- what?”

“Look, I don’t know how you haven’t figured this out by now, but I tried to kill your campers. Multiple times, actually. I’ll try again. It won’t be hard, I just have to get that- that _Max_ out of the way first. And they’ll fall like little dominos. But you,” Daniel takes David’s face again, keeping their eye contact firm and holding their bodies close to one another. “You can save them. Just one death for the price of many. Save the children, David.” 

“So-” David winces at his voice, coming out smaller and more afraid than he wants it to. “If I say no-”

“Then goodbye Camp Campbell campers. I’ll simply kill them all. I’ll leave you down here, leave dear Gwen to find you. After she finishes mourning the kids, that is.” Daniel says, and tilts his head to the side with a crack. “Won’t they be dearly missed?”

“Their parents- Gwen- they’d... they _would_ be missed.” David bows his head as much as he can with Daniel holding it, his body sagging in his chains. “I’d miss them.”

“I know.”

David’s voice is barely more than a whisper now, and he stares upwards without raising his head. “If I say yes?”

“Then it’s bye-bye Daniel. Off to the stars with me, with Xemüg by my side- if I can possibly get that lucky, that is. It’s going to be incredible, David, just you wait.”

“So all I have to do...”

“Is say yes.”

“And trust you.”

Daniel grins. “And trust me, I suppose. But you trust me, don’t you, David?”

David raises his head. “And you’ll never kill again?” He says, and shakes his head from Daniel’s grip. “Never ever? Not even outside of Camp Campbell?”

“Never ever ever,” Daniel says solemnly, and lets out a short, humourless laugh. “I’ll even leave my knife here with you. I’d miss it, but...” he trails off, staring into David’s eyes. 

“Do it,” David says, and sets his jaw. “To save the kids.” Nothing happens for a second, and he almost thinks that Daniel has changed his mind, has had a realisation and a change of heart, but then a sharp pain hits his stomach, and he looks down to see Daniel’s knife sunk into his skin, his green shirt already beginning to stain with red. “Daniel-”

“Shut up,” Daniel says, and his eyes are bright. There’s a happy smile playing at his mouth, too happy for someone who’s holding a knife that is stuck into a person, too happy for someone whose hands are starting to drip with someone else’s blood. “Shut up. Don’t speak _ever_ again.”

David’s body wracks with pain as Daniel pulls out the knife and reaches up, using the red-stained blade to hack at the chain of the cuffs fastened around David’s wrists. He hears a soft tinkling sound, and his eyes blearily make out the shapes of chunks of metal on the floor before he drops down beside them, curling up on the stone as blood pours out of him. The individual handcuffs stay locked tightly around his wrists, only the chain between them shattered, and it feels somehow like Daniel left them there as a last illusion of imprisonment; even with the chain gone, the cuffs are still there, like some sort of bracelet given as a sick gift. 

“I didn’t think you’d do it,” Daniel says, and his eyes still shine with happiness. “I really didn’t.”

“Go,” David says, and bites back a scream as the pain in his stomach continues. He presses his hands against the wound, ignoring the unpleasant feel of warm blood running through his fingers. “Please go, Daniel.”

Daniel drops his knife with a laugh, and David watches as he turns on his heel and runs from the bunker, the bottom of his white shoes splashed with red. David reaches out a hand for the knife, closing his eyes when his fingers close around the handle. He brings it to himself gingerly, and strokes the blade with his eyes still shut, barely feeling the nicks it cuts on his skin. 

It’s like the bunker is hot and cold at the same time. The air is freezing, but the blood is warm, and David feels at least a little comfort in knowing that he’ll feel a reasonable temperature when he dies. He opens his eyes one last time and peers around the room, still holding the knife so tight that it cuts into his fingers, adding small droplets of blood to the growing pool around him. 

“Gwen? Max?” He knows that they can’t hear him, that he’s going to die all alone on a damp stone floor, but calling out seems like the right thing to do, like it can still save him somehow. “Dan- Daniel?”

He flinches as a light appears in the corner of his eye, glowing and white and blinding, like Heaven is opening up for him. Like this is nothing more than a movie, and he can leave the pool of blood, walk into the light, and find peace. His eyes squint as he stares into the light, a soft figure creating a shadow far away, and he lets out a painful, shaky breath as he recognises its face. “Jasper?”

Jasper smiles, and David smiles back, and the light overtakes him, and he closes his eyes softly. 

They don’t open again.

**Author's Note:**

> what’s up hoes i’m finally posting some words 
> 
> happy birthday to my bitch of a friend @nerducci who has successfully aged another year 
> 
> also i’m @mermistia on tumblr.hellsite, same name as here bc i’m uncreative


End file.
